https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to elections en https://religiondispatches.org/2025/03/28/dont-take-bait-kristi-noem-and-fascisms-sadistic-eroticization-power The image above is an altered detail from a video posted on X by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, along with a series of still photographs from her tour of the El Salvador prison to which Trump is deporting… Fri, 28 Mar 2025 04:04:51 EDT Jeff Sharlet b58d2c13-c982-43ee-8af6-b017030d4317 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/03/27/want-know-what-project-2025-world-looks-just-ask-homeschoolers-who-lived-it Although President Trump’s executive order on elections signed earlier this week is probably unconstitutional , it closely resembles the stalled SAVE Act , which requires voters to present a passport or birth certificate in person when registering to vote or… Thu, 27 Mar 2025 05:47:56 EDT Abbi Nye 7817047b-6a58-43e7-8132-d33a2b539c57 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/03/18/america-2025-what-disenchantment-looks I’ve always found the performative use of religious language, as an excoriation or a scold, to be laughably ineffective. To call someone “godless” was a way to make me curious, not a way to convince me that someone was morally… Tue, 18 Mar 2025 06:12:51 EDT Beatrice Marovich 8e71c60c-aac4-4a70-ab6d-35c5fe612f1c https://religiondispatches.org/2025/03/11/education-secretary-linda-mcmahon-board-christian-right-dream-wrestle-public-schools UPDATE 3/20/25: According to an AP report, President Trump will sign an executive order today formally directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education.” As a federal agency created… Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:47:41 EDT Chrissy Stroop 29b22e37-d3fb-48cc-9188-da9535a60f76 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/03/04/presidents-noxious-treatment-zelensky-makes-more-sense-if-we-see-donald-trump-himself Writing in The Atlantic on the disastrous February 28 meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Tom Nichols comments that Trump, “ambushed a loyal ally, presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia… Tue, 04 Mar 2025 06:04:08 EST Rachel Wagner 890d084a-ca5a-41a1-a6d5-12c5c1ee9da3 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/02/28/exalted-insurrectionists-kremlin-friendly-bombast-and-smattering-nazi-salutes-notes-cpac Matt and Mercedes Schlapp opened this year’s CPAC by celebrating: “Last year I said globalism was going to die,” Matt boomed, “and then it happened!” Then he turned to the audience and announced: “ message the globalists, at the World… Fri, 28 Feb 2025 04:48:45 EST Annika Brockschmidt eaa06e81-4322-479b-9948-529b334c0c66 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/02/13/jd-vance-merely-latest-conservative-christian-use-nazi-camps-cleanse-his-antisemitism On Thursday of this past week, Vice President JD Vance visited the site of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, making him the latest in a string of American public officials to visit a former Nazi camp. The visit, timed… Thu, 13 Feb 2025 06:51:51 EST Joel Swanson 5525e5ae-4ee8-476c-a9c8-ff5d85bb1097 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/02/06/trumps-eo-combat-antisemitism-wields-jewish-safety-weapon-crush-palestine-solidarity Last week, Trump released an executive order pledging to combat antisemitism by ordering a draconian crackdown on Palestine solidarity protests. That same day, reporters leaked a memo from an agency within Pete Hegseth ’s Department of Defense ordering personnel to… Thu, 06 Feb 2025 02:45:19 EST Ben Lorber e19ab202-78ae-4ee0-b56d-86d542630f0a https://religiondispatches.org/2025/02/06/freedom-q-shaman-and-justice-leonard-peltier-are-mutually-exclusive One of President Biden’s final acts as US president was to grant clemency to American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), who will be released into home arrest sometime this month. The 80-year-old Peltier, who suffers from… Thu, 06 Feb 2025 11:49:12 EST Dana Lloyd cfcb7737-89eb-41fa-ab90-c249ad957b18 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/02/05/despite-gop-devolving-white-christian-nationalist-party-majority-us-does-not-support In the wake of the election of Donald Trump with the strong support of White evangelical and other conservative White Christians, my organization, PRRI, released yesterday our annual update of the largest ongoing study of Christian nationalism ever conducted. Based… Wed, 05 Feb 2025 05:53:50 EST Robert P. Jones 946225f3-9c02-438e-951d-d82850f70009 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/28/confronting-trump-directly-bishop-mariann-budde-showed-not-all-religious-leaders-are Bishop of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde, led A Service of Prayer for the Nation on January 21, 2025, at the Washington National Cathedral. President Donald J. Trump and entourage were among the invited guests. Her clear and simple message of… Tue, 28 Jan 2025 05:13:21 EST Mary Hunt f0cb50a7-7878-426d-b97c-cad8307955f2 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/22/proud-be-real-american-lee-greenwoods-god-bless-usa-and-politics-apolitical When you’re raised in an authoritarian Christian community you can never quite comfortably fit into, you learn early on about the ambiguity of language. Words like “love,” for example, mean very different things to a person who respects others’ bodily… Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:42:00 EST Chrissy Stroop 93d080cb-e63a-43c0-a013-4fdf4fa8fb05 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/21/while-global-media-are-clear-musks-nazi-salute-us-media-engage-nazi-washing At President Trump’s post-inaugural festivities, Elon Musk rose to the podium emblazoned with the Seal of the President of the United States to make a speech. It was a privilege earned through the $277 million he paid to back Trump… Tue, 21 Jan 2025 04:38:26 EST Steven Gardiner 81daa90e-3690-4374-9d24-3a0d6bf02a43 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/21/leaving-office-biden-announced-era-should-already-be-28th-amendment-if-it-could-it-be Although it has since been removed from the White House website, on Friday afternoon, with seconds remaining on his presidential clock, Joseph Robinette Biden announced (noticed?) that the Equal Rights Amendment met the requirements to be added to the constitution… Tue, 21 Jan 2025 10:20:01 EST Megan Goodwin 207db602-6043-46cc-b6fd-516587b74b1a https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/16/not-single-senator-probed-most-dangerous-part-pete-hegseths-background-his-ties-white It’s hard to find strong enough adjectives to describe the unmitigated disaster the senate hearing on Pete Hegseth truly was. Even the few Republicans who had expressed previous concerns about his nomination for Secretary of Defense handled him with kid… Thu, 16 Jan 2025 02:48:44 EST Robert P. Jones 30c1fde6-5913-490e-9896-2a5bb444c579 https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/15/old-white-south-rises-again-will-democrats-wilt-sake-national-reconciliation Let me spare you the suspense: Yes, the Democrats will someday come to be ashamed of and to regret their shameless support for the disgusting and xenophobic Laken Riley Act, as Michelle Goldberg predicts. But how long will it take… Wed, 15 Jan 2025 05:08:28 EST Peter Laarman 50412a1f-0bc4-45c9-9b20-f00c816641ce https://religiondispatches.org/2025/01/10/idaho-legislature-memo-opposing-marriage-equality-signals-new-collaboration-undermine On Tuesday, January 7, 2025—just its second day of the session—the Idaho legislature sent a joint House and Senate petition to the United States Supreme Court outlining their collective rejection of its Obergefell v. Hodges decision , which required all… Fri, 10 Jan 2025 07:08:17 EST Annie Wilkinson, Steven Gardiner b788eb1d-72c3-4291-a3e9-fdaad4d24825 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/12/19/bipartisan-bills-aimed-pro-palestine-groups-could-be-used-target-political-opponents-and Since the election, there’s been a bipartisan effort in Congress to push legislation that could have a significant impact on nonprofits such as charities, universities, and religious institutions. Last month the House failed to reach the ⅔ majority necessary to… Thu, 19 Dec 2024 03:13:24 EST Habiba Farh 823f5a13-7ed4-408a-89ee-9d380a89e2f5 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/12/12/trump-administrations-approach-immigration-inspired-bible-book-revelation Trump recently appointed Tom Homan as his ‘ border czar ,’ a first step toward implementing a scorched-earth immigration policy that includes large-scale detention of migrants and mass deportation (perhaps even for American citizens ). While his policies have been… Thu, 12 Dec 2024 12:01:27 EST Yii-Jan Lin 167d120f-d33f-4c90-b708-87febc950dd8 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/12/09/while-nixon-sought-secretly-screw-political-enemies-trumps-dictatorial-desires-are-less On August 16, 1971, White House Counsel John Dean circulated a confidential memo to Nixon loyalists titled “Dealing with our Political Enemies” which proposed a plan for the administration to best “use the available federal machinery to screw our political… Mon, 09 Dec 2024 04:23:16 EST Steven Gardiner cc46ba44-d4b7-4459-a95e-87adc24681a6 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/12/06/leading-constitutional-sheriffs-org-announces-full-support-trumps-mass-deportations In an expected move, the leading organization of the far-right “constitutional sheriffs” movement has endorsed the incoming Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. In a press release this week, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) announced “its full support… Fri, 06 Dec 2024 12:55:51 EST Ethan Fauré ea3350e7-656f-48a2-8f32-4c7b8679132d https://religiondispatches.org/2024/12/03/why-we-defend-con-artists-trump-nominee-dr-oz-long-after-theyve-failed-us Remember Dr. Oz? Remember when he was dragged in front of Congress for selling a “magic weight loss cure for every body type” — his green tea “miracle” pills that “burn fat fast”? If confirmed, he will be Trump’s head… Tue, 03 Dec 2024 03:28:34 EST Alan Levinovitz 247a3a80-2d9a-4ccc-8433-f73caeffc142 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/12/02/authoritarians-must-break-your-will-resist-so-what-can-you-do-about-it There were many people, apparently, who voted for Trump who justified it with plain vanilla doubt. As in: they see the threats to imprison political opponents, to encourage police to run wild on “one really violent day,” and to imprison… Mon, 02 Dec 2024 12:01:37 EST Steven Gardiner 53c20301-e529-4dba-86bd-81077714ab3f https://religiondispatches.org/2024/11/24/trumps-cabinet-and-other-picks-paint-picture-christian-nationalist-kakistocracy Benjamin Franklin’s hope and warning, “A republic, if you can keep it,” resonates with too many of us these days. This has especially been the case watching the president-elect nominate his Cabinet, a wishlist of personnel that perfectly embodies Trumpism’s… Sun, 24 Nov 2024 01:01:51 EST Annika Brockschmidt, Thomas Lecaque c83347ce-8675-4bc3-8a9a-31b4ddc6e168 https://religiondispatches.org/2024/11/18/even-if-voters-get-what-they-asked-its-more-likely-cause-fascist-death-spiral-lesson In response to the election, a significant number of people on social media and elsewhere have expressed some form of this sentiment: a lot of voters are going to get what they asked for and learn some hard lessons about… Mon, 18 Nov 2024 12:42:38 EST Scott Coley 69a05b0a-273e-4e7b-b1f1-e583b4d74f2f